Vicki Pettersson - The Given

“What an accomplished Life Enrichment Coordinator,” Grif said flatly.

“Who are you?” Mr. Allen said.

“The guy with a gun pointed at your chest.”

Allen’s gaze flicked to Grif’s hands, empty and hanging at his sides.

“Oh, yeah.” Grif rolled his eyes, pulled the gun from his pocket, and pointed it at Allen’s chest before the other man had even blinked. He’d taken it from his ankle holster and readied it when Allen had slipped into the bedroom. “ Now I’m the man with a gun pointed at your chest. Question is, who are you ?”

Because he wasn’t merely some assisted-living helpmate.

“Fuck you.”

“That seems to be a very common name these days. And how long have you worked here, Fuck You?”

Allen responded by ducking low and stomping on Grif’s right foot at the same time. Grif curled forward automatically, and by the time he saw Allen’s uppercut, it was too late. Stars danced before his eyes as his jaw cracked. Were he 100 percent mortal, he’d be out. As it was, he managed to pull Allen with him as he went down, then flipped and stilled the struggling man by tucking his gun in his left ear.

Grif bore down on the guy, breathing hard. How the hell had Allen hit him? He’d read the other man’s body language. He should’ve seen the blow coming. Growling, he shook the worry off for later.

“Why are you watching Al Zicaro so closely?”

Mr. Allen didn’t move at all, but Grif was a P.I. with two lifetimes’ worth of experience in reading people, and he caught the triumphant cast in the other man’s gaze.

“And why,” Grif said slowly, “don’t the other residents have any idea who you are?”

That drew a smile from Allen, though it was far less kind than the one he’d shared with Grif before. “You have no idea who I am, either.”

“Sure I do.”

“Who am I then, smartass?”

Grif flipped his gun in one quick motion and walloped Allen in the temple twice, once to get the job done and a second time as payback for the blow he’d unexpectedly delivered to Grif. The big man dropped face-first onto the thin carpeting, and a sick crunching sound came from where his nose used to be. Grif left him facedown as he rifled through his pockets.

“You’re Justin Allen,” he said, reading from the wallet. “A.k.a. Fuck You.”

And he dropped the wallet back on the ground so the man would see it when he came around. Then, locking the door behind him, he went in search of Kit.

Kit often said that she was born at least thirty years too late. She’d have preferred to roam the Las Vegas Valley in its heyday, when the Rat Pack was crooning cool at the Copa and when dressing up for a night out meant donning more clothing and not less. Yet despite her love for crinoline and cocktail culture, rockabilly music and the mid-mod sensibility, Kit had to admit that her nostalgia for all things rockabilly was just that. Everything she’d gone through in the past year—starting with the murder of her best friend and culminating with the loss of Grif, a man literally of that era—had forced her to admit that there was no era unmarred by greed or corruption or just plain meanness. Reality was? Those things touched every life and every time.

Sure, Kit would continue thrifting and jiving and swing-dancing, but the cat’s-eye glasses she donned were no longer rose-tinted, and it was with clear vision that she spotted trouble coming from the corner of her eye as she pushed Al Zicaro’s wheelchair down a thin walkway behind his home at Sunset.

And this time, Kit was ready.

“How badly do you want to get out of here?” she asked Zicaro, picking up the pace.

He caught the direction of her nervous glance and leaned forward in his chair, eyes bulging behind his bifocals as he spotted the two orderlies rushing their way. “You didn’t say nothing about getting out of here.”

“You’re saying you want to stay?” she said dubiously.

“I’m saying . . . I don’t know.” He pursed his lips, looking sullen.

“Then why did you grab that?” She jerked her head at the unnatural bulge in his pants, and he covered it with his hands like he was ashamed.

“I bring this with me everywhere. It’s the most valuable information I own,” Zicaro said, patting his pants to reveal the outline of the plastic container he’d shoved in his pocket. “I even sleep with it under my pillow.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, glancing behind her, then ahead, mentally calibrating how far it was to the parking lot. “I have a feeling your most valued information is held in your head.”

“Got that right, missy,” he said proudly.

“Good,” she said, and left the path to make a beeline across the grass.

The orderlies broke into a loping run. They’d catch up well before she could gain the corner of the building, forget about reaching the car.

“What the hell is he carrying?” she said, more to herself than Al. The larger man held his right arm in front of him, and was careful not to let it swing as he ran. His hand was folded around something that glinted in the thin sunlight. It looked like . . .

“Oh, that’s a gun,” Al said matter-of-factly, and Kit stumbled. “They all carry them.”

“At an end-of-life care facility?” she said incredulously, and picked up her pace.

“They take their jobs very seriously.”

Heart revving, Kit searched for signs of Grif, but there was no other soul nearby. She wondered about angels, though. She worried about plasma.

And she knew she was going to have to use the dark experiences of the past year to handle this herself.

“Just follow my lead,” she told Zicaro, and while the guards—not orderlies—were still a hundred yards away, she pulled her lady’s pistol from her bucket bag. Then she swiveled the wheelchair around, and held the gun to Zicaro’s head.

“Hey!” he tried to climb from the chair while it was still moving, scrawny limbs flailing.

“It’s not loaded,” she muttered, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back into his seat. “Now take mental notes, my attentive friend. Because if my hunch is right, you’re going to be starring in your next feature story.”

The old man’s mouth opened and closed a few times, which made him look like a fish pulling at air, but curiosity finally won out and he snapped it shut. Shooting her a saucy wink, he turned back around and put his hands in the air.

The two orderlies—the guards—reared back on their heels.

“Don’t come any closer,” Kit told them, pitching her voice loud and low, hoping she at least sounded sure of herself. This was improvisation; she and Grif had planned for her to be out of reach well before anyone had noticed Zicaro missing. Again, she wondered what had happened to her reluctant angel.

“Just put the gun down, lady,” one of the orderlies said. He was so ginger he was almost blond, florid in the face where he wasn’t pockmarked, and destined to wear a boy’s face on his man’s body for long into old age. He held his free hand out before him, the other poised at the small of his back.

“Since when does an assisted-living facility require armed guards?” she asked, backing away. The two men mirrored the movement but angled their footsteps in opposite directions, trying to flank her. She tapped Zicaro on the shoulder. Getting into the spirit of things, Zicaro flapped his arms a little.

“No, I mean, help me.”

“Oh.” Zicaro reached for his wheels.

“Just put it down,” said the second guard. His gun was still out, and it was all Kit could do not to stare solely at him, yet the other man, though smaller, was moving fast, and she had to keep him in her sights as well.

“No,” she said. “Why don’t you call the cops instead?”